Noggin
Noggin (now called Nick Jr., but is still an app) was a cable channel in the United States that is aimed at preschoolers. It is where the Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! episodes were re-shown. Original Noggin (1999–2002) The new channel launched on February 2, 19997 at 6:00 AM, with the original pilot episode of Sesame Street from 1969. It then was followed by the first few episodes of The Electric Company, which hadn't been televised since 1971. At the time Noggin launched, only Inverness, Colorado-based satellite provider EchoStar and Meridian, Colorado-based satellite provider Dish Network both carried the channel.8 The network's name was derived from a slang term for "head" and, by extension, had reflected its original purpose as an educational channel. Noggin's programming was originally targeted primarily at pre-teens from 1999 to 2002, although a few programs airing on the channel were aimed at preschoolers. This had the unintended consequence of creating a redundant audience with parent network Nickelodeon, which also primarily targets a pre-teen audience, despite Noggin's programming being more educational in nature than the entertainment-based Nickelodeon. The channel's first official mascot was Phred, a strange pickle character, who was seen on the channel from 1999 to 2002. Celebrating Noggin's award-winning website, Phred was said to live "in the dot of Noggin dot com." Programs that aired on Noggin during this period of Noggin's history included (among others) Phred on Your Head Show, A Walk in Your Shoes, and Bill Nye the Science Guy.9 Rebrand 2002 (2002–2015) \Noggin was a commercial-free service, but it did show interstitials between shows such as episodes from the short film series Oobi and Connie the Cow's Milk Break, as well as other "tie-in" media such as music videos that tied in with promotions for programs on the other Nickelodeon channels. Much of the channel's revenue came primarily from carriage fees paid by pay television providers. With the rebrand, Noggin introduced its first mascot named Feetface; its introduction brought about one of the first examples of a new animation style called "photo-puppetry", in which an animation is created by the use of manipulation of photographs.Due to low ratings, the format of Noggin was changed on Monday, April 1, 2002, shifting its target audience to preschoolers full-time.10 That same date, Viacom launched The N, a teen-oriented program block that targeted an older audience and featured programming edgier in content than Noggin or Nickelodeon.10 Similarly to the shared-time format of Nickelodeon (which had shared channel space with other cable channels throughout much of its history including The Movie Channel, BET, the Alpha Repertory Television Service and its successor A&E) and Nick at Nite, Noggin and The N aired their respective programming over the same channel space and in a block format: Noggin ran from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET, while The N ran from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. ET seven nights a week. This was acknowledged in Noggin's daily sign-off message, which explained that Noggin would resume its programming at 6:00 a.m. ET the next morning. Later in 2002, Sesame Workshop sold its stake in Noggin to Viacom, giving them full control of the channel.10 Feetface's last day on Noggin aired on Sunday, April 6, 2003, alongside Maurice Sendak's Little Bear. After that, they showed a preview for Moose and Zee followed by the final Noggin bumper and The N's Sunday schedule. On Monday, April 7, 2003, Noggin introduced two new mascots named Moose and Zee. In addition to airing classic Nickelodeon preschool series such as Blue's Clues , Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! and Dora the Explorer, and original shows such as Jack's Big Music Show and Oobi, Noggin also aired many preschool-oriented shows originating from English-speaking countries outside of the United States (including the Canadian series Maurice Sendak's Little Bear and Franklin, and British series Tiny Planets). Rebrand 2015 (2015—present) The channel also served as the launching pad for music videos by children's music artists such as Laurie Berkner, Lisa Loeb and Dan Zanes, initially as filler between 23-minute-long shows that ran commercial-free, and (because of their success in that format) now as music video shows like Move to the Music. Around this time, Noggin began to air versions of classic shows from the Sesame Workshop library (such as The Electric Company), that were edited for running time. In 2005, Noggin began to decrease its reliance on foreign children's programs; Rugrats was removed from the schedule in January, with Connie the Cow being dropped that September. Connie the Cow was previously shown intermittently, i.e. not on a daily basis, at 6 a.m. ET, as Rugrats was for a year until it was removed. The channel, however, later acquired the Australian series The Upside Down Show (which, like Tiny Planets, has American origins through Sesame Workshop) in 2006. Noggin was renamed as Nick's Noggin on April 2, 2007, carrying Nick Jr. programs. First return as a full 24/7 service (2007–2009) On August 13, 2007, Nickelodeon announced that it would shut down sister channel Nickelodeon Games and Sports on December 31, 2007, turning it into an online-only service on TurboNick, with The N becoming its own 24-hour channel that would take over Nickelodeon GAS's channel space.11 Noggin's time-sharing service ended its five-year run on December 30, 2007 at 6:00 p.m. ET, with the Little Bear ''episode "Emily's Visit" as its last program to air. The final sign on was a sudden cut-in to the intro of the American/French series ''64 Zoo Lane replacing the song. However, due to unknown bandwidth problems, Dish Network continued to carry Nickelodeon GAS on its usual channel slot, with Noggin continuing to timeshare with The N on the satellite provider until April 23, 2009, when Dish replaced GAS with the Pacific Time Zone feed of Turner Broadcasting System's Cartoon Network (that network used to air preschool programming until 2007); Dish Network began to carry The N and Noggin as separate channels on May 6, 2009. Blue’s Clues Marthon on Noggin Feetface Category:1999 Category:TV Guide Category:Season 1 Category:Season 2 Category:Season 3